Often Irreverent, Mostly Rational Blog for Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays. One Day, We'll Be Perfect.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

30 second posts - The briefest of thoughts

On Monday, we offered the briefest of thoughts (52 words!) on John Farrell, and it got us in trouble because of the lack of contextualizing and sermonizing. (That's our guess.) So we figured we'd let fly with another undercooked post, and let you tear away at it like hungry wolves. Kill!

John Farrell is good because: Monday, we said hiring Farrell was a good thing, and we got hit with a chorus of "WHY?!" So here's why: He seems smart, he seems to be actually thinking his way through his answers as he gives them, and because he has the humility to note that he wasn't prepared to take a managerial job only a year or so ago. The fool thinks he knows all, the sage knows that he knows nothing.

Having your cake and eating it too: We've always said how much we like this coaching staff, minus The Former Manager. Getting Brian Butterfield to stick with this team after he was passed over for the managerial job is just stupid awesome news. Add to that the Jays keeping Pappy Walton around, and the rumours that Luis Rivera will join the big league staff, and you're looking at a happy Tao. (We're also crossing our fingers that Omar Malave and Dwayne Murphy are back, though we'd respect Farrell wanting to bring in some of his own guys.) We can't actually remember the last time that we felt this good about the instructional resources that the Jays have at their disposal.

Tabby and Farrell?: Pat Tabler and John Farrell played together with the Cleveland Clevelanders back in 1987 and 1988. We're sincerely hoping that Tabby can bust out with some old-timey stories next year about how Farrell used to punch dudes in the bag for making errors behind him. Or something like that.

The World Series: We could bitch about how long it took to get this series off the ground, but those are wasted words. Suffice to say, we're looking forward to what we think will be a great series. Giants in seven.

18 comments:

after listening to his FAN interview i think all the headlines about Farrell preferring a set line-up (OMFG CITO NOOOOOOOOOO) are out of proportion. what he said was that "ideally" everyone performs and you don't have to make any changes. i think everyone can agree about that.

another nice point that came out of that discussion was that players want a manager who played the game, more than they want someone who has managerial experience. this makes a lot of sense to me. i can't imagine a player putting a lot of stock in a manager's minor league managing experience. i can see pitchers respecting a guy who pitched.

finally, the "learning on the job" criticism seems completely out of place for baseball. the in-game decisions are not rocket surgery. off the field, if you're a leader then you'll be able to lead, and if you're a teacher you'll be able to teach.

The notion that Farrell's going to have to learn on the job is absurd. It's not as though he's been completely oblivious to the game of baseball for years as an executive or a pitching coach.

The thing is that the manager doesn't have a shit-tonne to do once the game is started. He just has to make sure he doesn't screw it up, and Farrell strikes me as the sort who would monkey around with shit just to make his presence known.

"“I think on-base percentage is an overrated stat,” Murphy said flatly. “Those guys getting on base, most of them aren’t getting them in. Give me somebody who drives them in after that. I need guys who can drive the ball.”

Personally, I'm torn on the Murph conundrum. I can't shake the interview he did on Jays Connected - which, I believe, is where the above quote comes from - where he expressed disdain for OBP, taking walks, "clogging up the basepaths", etc.

On the other hand, the longball is exciting as fuck. Can't it be possible to retain Murph and his swing-from-the-ass philosophy while mixing in (acquiring?) players who just get on base?

I think it would be wise for the Jays to keep Murphy around. As The Ack points out, it's all about personnel. Bring in guys who get on base, period. The Jays don't have them right now. One of them (Ramirez, Manny) is eager to come and play here.

Murphy's approach didn't stop Bautista from walking 100 times last year - when he says "OBP is overrrated" I don't think he means "I'd rather guys strike out than take a walk," but rather that he doesn't want guys trying to get walked, watching good pitches go by, Denbo-style.

Whether or not that's actually the case, who knows... but I actually think Murphy's approach (wait until you get the pitch you want, and then swing at that one) should, in theory at least, improve walk rates rather than hinder them, despite what he might have said about OBP.

It's interesting, because on the one hand you have Bautista who clearly benefited from the more aggressive mantra and then you have Overbay, who was clearly less patient this year, resulting in his OPS being down from last year.

The frustration for me with Overbay, at least in previous years, was that it seemed like walking was his main objective at the plate, regardless of RISP and the different situations that presented themselves. It seemed that rather than squaring up on the 2-0 or 3-1 fastball down the middle of the plate, he opted to take the pitch instead. I think that's one of the things Murphy and Gaston tried to change, but it resulted in a worse year for him.